Brother - DS-940DW Compact Wireless Duplex Mobile Document Scanner - White

Hello. I first want to say the Brother DS-940DW is a great portable scanner. Lately, I feel as though this part of the market has been left alone and new improvements have not come to light. I am glad Brother has made this device and its sister models. The initial setup and download was a breeze. With this device having multiple connection methods I was impressed with how well it could detect the device and make sure everything would would connect correctly in the future. You have three options to "connect" this device either it be Wifi, USB, or use a micro SD card (I will talk about this later on). After the initial setup, I was easily able to turn on my scanner at any time and it would connect to my pc via wifi in less than a minute. If I decided to scan via USB, all I had to do was flip a switch on the side and plug in the usb and my pc instantly recognized the device without having to reinstall software and it still knew it was the same device. Impressive. The scanner has a ton of capabilities to fit every situation. With a flip of a switch you can use the wifi to scan to your pc or mobile device. Flip to usb mode and you can plug your device right into your pc or you can flip the switch to SD card mode if you have a micro SD card inserted and scan right to the card without any wifi, pc or mobile access.. A great way to just scan and have no other worries. I should note this scanner does have an embedded battery so you can scan via wifi or micro sd card without any cords. I could not find any info about how long the battery will last via hours or with how many scans. I should say out of the box I plugged it right in my pc to charge with the included usb cable and it did not take long for it to charge. It is fully charged when the green battery light goes off. This device will not tell you the battery percentage but will show you a battery with light that will change from green to orange. Once the light goes orange I recommend charging it because there will be no warning when its almost dead and will shut off on you. If this happens all you have to do is plug it in to your pc. As long as you dont make any changes to the scanning software in the mean time it will automatically know where to pick off as you turn the scanner back on and continue to scan. Software is the same program "Brother iPrint&Scan" for all their current printers. I can easily switch back and fourth from my big Brother printer or my DS-940DW portable scanner. The software is simple and capable but is not refined. I wish the software was just a little more eye appealing. This scanner comes loaded with extras though.. you get Power PDF for free as well as Brothers new Web based BR-Receipt software. Power PDF is awesome with a million edit and save functions. At this time I could not get the BR-Receipt to download as the printer was just released and I did not have access to the software yet. I am sure it will be simple and sufficient. Now to talk about scanning: When you insert your paper, card, etc on the bottom slot it will auto grab it and hold it in place. An awesome feature that acts like your third hand. Once you hit start it will scan super fast. I should note that you can continuous scan but its not what you think. You will have to hit add page on the program click start scanning again and then it will scan and add a page.. you will have to do this for every single page... Yea so that 50 page document will be better off being scanned in a normal printer scanner or more capable larger brother scanner. I would say this scanner is good for 10 pages and under (duplex) as soon as you do more than that. The add page, scan and repeat gets to you. Why you cant just tell it to keep scanning as you add another page to one file is besides me and is really a flaw. This could be updated in the future but I am not sure if Brother will.

So, I am a 61 year old woman who may have the very highest technical know-how, but as a practicing CPA who uses all kinds of software and various machines, I am not a blithering idiot either. I have now made 2 calls to Brother's 1-800 telephone number, both that landed offshore, and have spent at least an hour and a half on the first call with Victor and over an hour on the second call with Anisha. Now, maybe this machine is still so new that they have not adequately trained their tech support on the model. So, what has been my chief complaint and problem. Well, this machine would not connect wirelessly with either my home desktop using Windows 7 Professional and then also with my HP Spectre that has Windows 10 Edge software. In both cases, without remediation by Anisha either asking higher technical support people for instructions or her reading up on this specific machine, I would still not have been able to set it up wirelessly, which was what my intention was when I first requested this machine. I currently have almost all of my printers and scanners wirelessly connected and why would I want to go backwards at this point. So, I was finally successful with Anisha to get this machine wirelessly connected with my HP Spectre and will try to go back when I have time to try and install it wirelessly to my home desktop. The key factor is that the computers do not recognize this machine's network. In discussing this with Anisha, this machine essentially has its own built-in network and rather then using your existing network that connects to your computer, printers, other scanners, etc., you have to go into your WIFI and then set it up within this machine's own network and use the PASS number that is printed, among other numbers, on the bottom of the machine. When I went through this special network set up, the blue-flashing Wi-fi symbol finally went solid and had the connection to my HP Spectre laptop. Hooray!!! Bottom line, it should not have taken so much to get this wirelessly working with my computer. Physically, it is compact enough to be able to be carried around by the user for portable use, and considering today's conditions with COVID-19, this would be perfect to use by people who are telecommuting or those who would normally go from place to place- this would be a really good, lightweight, compact machine to scan items into your computer for whatever reason you might need to do so. . Afterall, when we request items to try, we have a good sense if this is a product that we want to be able to use in either our everyday personal or professional life. And while we get the product for our honest, written opinion on how it performs..I want to like all the products that I pick to try and always hope that it is very user friendly.

--- SETUP --- The setup of the scanner is quick and simple. It comes with a USB 3.0 cable but no USB adapter. You can use your phone adapter or any computer with a USB port. You may use the scanner while it is charging, but it’s purpose is to be a portable charger, allowing you to scan away from a plug with it’s Li-ion battery. --- FEATURES --- The key feature of this scanner is that it works completely wirelessly after charging the battery. No Wi-Fi required for it to work, as it has its own direct WiFi to your mobile device. Can scan double-sided documents, in color, with no bleedthrough. Can store scanned files directly to a Micro SD card. --- PERFORMANCE --- The performance of this scanner is phenomenal. As an educator, I often find myself wanting to scan student work to showcase later, after making some notes. The scanner is fast and the double-sided feature eliminates a second scan-through. The scanner has a feature that grabs the document and pulls it in a little so that you know the paper has been recognized. This same feature is a great way to see if your document is aligned properly or not before you scan. Scanning one page takes about 5 seconds even when double-sided is an option. I mainly used this scanner with the Brother app (iPrint&Scan) on iPhone. The app offers a few, limited features, such as cropping or straightening an angled document, but those features leave a lot to be desired. Luckily, if you set up the documents correctly and choose the right size of paper prior to scan (letter, A4), you shouldn’t use those features because the scanner does an excellent job. --- EXPECTATIONS --- The product meets my expectations. I’ve used many scanners at my job, and most often they have left me disappointed. This one has ticked all the right boxes for me and more. I got this at the right time, right before doing my taxes, and I trusted it enough to scan sensitive documents and saved them to my cloud storage of choice. --- VALUE --- The price for the scanner in terms of value is a worthy investment if you plan on scanning often and on the go. --- APPROVAL --- I highly recommend this product for people who scan on the go and are dissatisfied by using the mobile app scanners from phones.

Pros: Lightweight Looks snazzy Easy buttons and menus and knobs and switches so you know what to press Good scan quality, duplex is great The flip cover to fee the paper straight up instead of straight out is a nice bonus Cons: No room for a multi-sheet feeder. A shame because I rarely need to scan just 1 page. Wifi is functional, but frustrating. I thought the scanner would connect to my wifi and then let any machine on my wifi receive scans. What actually happens is you have to tell your computing device to join the Wifi of the scanner directly, then you can scan from that device using whatever app is available. Why oh why does this thing use a proprietary USB cable? Now I have to lug around yet another specialized cable. It's supposed to be mobile friendly. This device should be USB-C but it's not. The software experience on macOS. BR-Receipts App + Presto! BizCard 7 + Firmeware Update utility + macOS System Preferences >Printers and Scanners and add scanner. This adds some level of flexibility in that each app has it's own specialized purpose, but I would rather have a single app that just scans everything instead of having to remember the names of each one and then work within it.

It took me a while to get this scanner up and going, but now that the software is working correctly it is exactly what I needed. The receipt scanner software is the greatest ever. You can now save all major stores,(ie: Bestbuy, Walmart, Target, Kroger, etc.) to its built-in subfolders. Best idea ever! Highly recommend. 4 stars because it took a while to get the software working correctly.

It's fast and convenient... only drawback is that the battery life is so short, might as well not have been wireless. It's always connected anyway.

So I've just received my Brother DS-940DW Compact Wireless Scanner a few days ago and have been putting it through its paces. First off, inside the box comes the usual user documentation including the user manual, USB cable which connects to your computer and a calibrations sheet. After connecting this to my computer, I followed the instructions in the user manual to Brother's website and downloaded the software. You can download the iPrint&Scan software as well as the PowerPDF software. Once everything is installed you can go into the Brother Utilities and tweak the changes to your liking. After tweaking was set, I then ran a few test pages, such as my drivers license, and a few other documents. One of my favorite features of this scanner is the ability to scan front and back with just one pass rather than having to flip the page over. This scanner arrived just in time as I can use this both at home and at work. Once pages are scanned you can save them a jpgs or PDF files. My company tends to send lots of PDF files which can then be easily attached to an email. This scanner also allows you to connect it to your computer wirelessly and also use the companion app (which can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store) to your mobile device such as your smartphone or tablet. It scans fast and flawless, however the include calibration sheet can be used if/when documents scanned come out skewed a bit. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a great wireless scanner that is portable and easy to use. Receipt software can also be downloaded and installed from Brother's website to organize and track your receipts. Great for accounting office management.

There are a LOT of times when an app-based scanner just doesn't cut it. Whether it's lighting or shaky hands from too many coffee meetings, it helps to have a dedicated, wireless scanner that you can have with you. Let's get really clear: the scans from this device are high-quality, color-accurate, and FAST (faster than similar Brother scanner models by a few seconds of processing time). The DS-940DW is about 5 pounds, so not light enough to carry with you in a computer bag daily, but easily able to be brought with you in your car. In terms of form factor, the buttons are pretty clear on the top to switch options (color/b+w, 1 or 2 sided, pdf or jpeg output), along with a power button and a start/stop scan button. Since you can do most of these things via the Brother iScan+Print app, you may never use these physical buttons, but the scan-to-SD feature means you're *ultraportable* with no computer required at all - and that's a great thing for places where it's just too risky to take your computer, but you need a scanner. On the side, there's a "scan to" switch that lets you select either SD card, USB connection to computer, or WiFi connection. The slightly-odd thing about setup here: the scanner generates its own WiFi network that you can connect to... it's on by default whenever the "scan to" switch is set to WiFi. The TL;DR version of what I'm about to say: you're gonna need a geek to help you get this set up the way you'll probably want to use it (wirelessly). In order to connect the scanner to your own WiFi network, the included documentation is woefully sub-par (there are a number of hoops to jump through: connecting via USB, installing and updating the Brother software, then turning on the scanner's WiFi connection, then finding the browser admin tool password in the Brother online documentation - because this info isn't on the QuickStart or PDF manuals, then finally connecting the scanner to your wifi... and then shutting off the internal broadcast network). The USB cable included is USB-A, so if your computer is USB-C only, you'll need an adapter for the initial setup, but it does make finding a charger pretty easy. A slight irritation: the scanner is front-load rather than top-load... which is fine if you only have a page or two to scan, but if you have a stack, it's not optimal and requires extra effort to avoid a mess at the top. Because of how the "cover" sticks out, you can't just set it on its back to make it a top-load... this is an odd user experience for something designed to be ultraportable. Overall, the DS-940DW gets 4 out of 5 stars. It's a must-have if you're on the go and need something better than your phone's camera app to scan documents.